Instead, in
an almost amusingly churlish and petulant statement, Landgraf voiced his
decision to let the bill stand (to keep from “further lengthen[ing] this
conflict and further tear at the seams of this campus”) in spite of his
misgivings, which he proceeded to bitterly enumerate.

Like many others, Landgraf cited the “divisiveness
of the bill and the rift it created in our campus community”.

Landgraf went on to “reject the
one-sided narrative of this bill, and its complete and utter failure to create
any constructive discussion or dialogue on a complex and multifaceted issue.This bill has served to do nothing more than
divide our campus, foster anger, and encourage divisiveness”.He waxed positively lyrical about the “pain
this bill has already produced”, and in an
interview with the Daily Californian, reportedly
“characterized the week leading up to his announcement as one of the worst of
his life”.In the same interview, he
contested that “this was not me siding with either side” in the same breath
that he announced that he “couldn’t disagree more with this bill”.

But let’s take the deep breath Landgraf
needed, and evaluate these rather dramatic claims.

In all seriousness, it’s hard to take the
divisiveness of the bill very seriously.Any serious problem with its provisions has to be manufactured for the
simple reason that if Landgraf and others actually read the legislation, they
would understand that is a fairly modest and even-handed bill.

SB 160 (see the bottom of this story
for the text of the bill, from which I’ll quote below) begins by
recognising “the role of student activists in exposing South Africa’s apartheid
system and supporting equality, freedom, and dignity sets an example for us to
follow as students of global conscience”.The most thick-headed of Israel’s supporters will begin hyperventilating
at this point, until they arrive at the next sentence which explains that no
direct parallel between Israeli colonialism and South African apartheid is
being drawn, but that rather, the bill is simply invoking a history of student
activism against discrimination and international crimes: “As the example of
South Africa shows, it is imperative for students to stand unequivocally
against all forms of racism and bigotry globally and on campus, including but
not limited to Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and the anti-Palestinian discrimination
practiced under Israel’s system of illegal occupation in the West Bank, Gaza,
and East Jerusalem”

On to the second component of the bill’s
argument, which begins with the uncontroversial statement that “certain
companies have promoted and been complicit in many of the ongoing human rights
violations systematically committed by the Israeli government”.ASUC is not alone in recognising this
problem, and the bill rightfully notes that “according to US policy, ‘the
legitimacy of continued settlement activity’ has not been accepted by any US
administration”.Both Presidents Obama
and Bush opposed the expansion of settlements.

Then comes a simple moral factual
statement: “our university invests in, and thereby profits from, companies that
have an active role in materially aiding Israel’s illegal occupation and the
resulting human rights abuses”.

This is followed by the section of this
carefully-worded bill which exposes the histrionics on the part of Israel’s
staunch campus defenders for what they are: uncritical support for a violent
government.“UCB students”, the bill
remarks, “enjoy peace of mind knowing that their university is barred by
federal law from making investments that aid Palestinian militant organizations
which engage in attacks that threaten the human rights of Israeli students and
their families and UCB students are not able to enjoy the same peace of mind
with respect to investments that threaten the human rights of Palestinian
students and their families as our university profits from the human rights
abuses visited upon these students and their families in the course of Israel’s
illegal occupation”.

This gives the lie to those who claim
that the bill is an attack on Israel and a defence of Palestinians (that it “takes
sides”), or those who insist that the bill is only concerned with violence
committed by one party in this conflict (a claim which, even if it were true, ignores
the fact that one party to the conflict is a state which possesses overwhelming
force and the unconditional backing of a superpower whilst the other party is a
non-state, kept in its colonial status by the former power).

It demonstrates that instead, the bill
is addressing an existing inequity which in fact treats the two parties
differently, permitting investment in companies which facilitate human rights on
one side of the conflict, while forbidding similar investment on the
other.To further assuage its critics,
the bill notes that “any attack directed at Israeli, Palestinian, or other
civilians is unacceptable”.

The resolution itself is simple: “Let it
be resolved that the ASUC will examine its assets and UC assets for funds being
invested in companies that a) provide weaponry or other military support for
the occupation of the Palestinian territories or b) facilitate the building or
maintenance of the wall or the demolition of Palestinian homes, or c)
facilitate the building, maintenance, or economic development of illegal
Israeli settlements on the occupied territory...if at any time it is found that
the campus or UC funds are being invested in any companies meeting any of these
criteria...the ASUC will itself divest, and will advocate that the UC system
divest, all stocks and investments in such companies with the goal of
maintaining the divestment, in the case of said companies, until they cease the
specific offending practices...[and] if at any time ASUC funds or UC funds are
found to be invested in companies profiting from organizations that target
Israeli citizens, the ASUC and the UC system should follow similar steps as
outlined in the prior clause and divest those funds”.

The companies which are explicitly
identified in SB 160 include Caterpillar Incorporated, Cement Roadstone
Holdings, and Hewlett Packard, companies involved in settlement construction,
the building of the wall, and the facilitation of checkpoints in the service of
the police state in Israel’s colonies.

But now let’s leave aside Landgraf’s
misplaced whining and turn to the simple moral purpose of SB 160, which is not
a case of “Divestment from Israel”, but rather an attempt to divest from
specific companies which are complicit in well-documented human rights abuses (Human Rights Watch
and Amnesty
International provide extensive documentation of these abuses).

SB 160 represents an attempt by our
campus community to say that we hold certain values, and that our value system
is repelled by the abuse of human rights and the facilitation of that abuse by
corporate power.It is an action which
recognises its own limitations: even if the UC Regents, generally
representatives of the same corporate amorality which sustains inequality and
state violence in our troubled world, consented to divest UC funds, Israeli
colonialism would undoubtedly endure.

But our campus is insisting on our right
to say that our community should invest and sustain itself ethically, with
reference to our values.We are
insisting that we, as the individuals who comprise this institution dedicated
to a search for knowledge and equality and camaraderie in our world, must live
and study and work in an institution which, at the very least, should not conspire
to do harm to others or to sustain inequality.We might even, if those who were so bitterly opposed to this modest and
even-handed bill, think about whether we can do some good.

Last week I read a 1981 report by the
Christian Concern for Southern Africa, “Arms For Apartheid”, which documented
the complicity of the British government and British corporate power in sustaining
the Nationalist regime in South Africa.That
document is part of a decades-long campaign which sought to make a similar
statement about the ability of citizens in another time to hold their
institutions to account.Historians will
always debate the extent to which the international community and the actions
of an international global society influenced the end of apartheid in South
Africa, or colonialism in European empires, or the end of the U.S. war on
Vietnam.Let us hope that our own
actions, on this campus and elsewhere, will also give them the opportunity in
the not-too-distant future to debate the importance of our civil society’s
actions to the ending of Israeli colonialism in the Palestinian territories.

About Me

I am from Northern California, and am the fifth generation of my family to have lived in the Golden State. Now I live next-door in the Silver State, where I research and write about colonialism and decolonization in Africa, teach European, African, environmental, and colonial history, and write this blog, mostly about politics, sometimes about history, and occasionally about travels or research.